“I’ll just have to assume you’re an illiterate cretin who can’t read, Smoke,” Bane snarls. “Otherwise, if you’re not an illiterate cretin, I’d have to assume you read the label on that redhead. And then, I’d have to kill you. See that?”
He grabs Smokey by the hair and twists his head back at what looks like a painful angle until his wild eyes are pointed at me.
“See that writing on her chest?” Bane shouts. “Says she’s mine, you fucking cunt.”
Bane picks up Smokey enough to slam him back onto the bar for emphasis.
The darker man groans. “Come on, man, I didn’t do nothing.”
“Yet.” Bane is in Smokey’s face, his itchy fingers twirling the broken bottle in his hand. “Just like I haven’t cut you. Yet. But I will if I see anything by daylight between you and my property again.”
Bane jerks Smokey up and kicks him in the ass, sending him stumbling away a few steps before he can catch his balance. Now Smokey is standing upright, fuming. He raises a fist.
“Don’t push me, man!” Smokey shouts. “You’re pushing it, property or no property. How was I supposed to know it was true huh? These bitches are always saying bullshit, I don’t take em seriously.”
“You’ll take me seriously!” Bane’s voice is so powerful it drowns the cover band for a second. “Or you’ll bleed. Are we clear?”
Smokey and Bane eye each other warily. That cold grin tickles the corner of Bane’s mouth again. I believe he’s actually capable of anything, and I am tempted to shut my eyes. I don’t want to watch another man die like last night.
“Crystal clear,” Smokey finally says. He holds his hands up in the air, the universal sign of surrender. “My mistake, brother.”
Bane nods curtly, but doesn’t relax his fighting stance until he has watched Smokey cross to the other side of the bar and take a seat. The blue-eyed bartender hands him his Dewar’s without a word.
The bar seems to collectively exhale in relief and the din of the crowd resumes.
Bane tosses his improvised broken bottle weapon on the counter and leans over the bar to help Coco back to her feet. As he bends past me, the scent of his musky clean aftershave makes my pulse speed up. He wraps a giant hand around Coco’s shoulder and pulls her back to standing.
“You ok?” He grunts.
She sucks in her breath painfully, pressing her fingers into a new cut on her forehead. When she pulls her fingers away, she sees the blood and turns furious eyes on me.
“You stupid bitch!” She screeches, lunging at me.
Bane has a firm grip on her shoulder, though, and holds her back. “Whoa, whoa,” he says, sounding like the horse whisperer. “Let me handle it.” He pulls her in and brushes his lips intimately over hers, and I look away blushing. “Now scram,” says Bane, patting Coco on the ass and shoving her away.
Coco glares at me over her shoulder but obediently retreats back to the kitchen, passing the other chained bartender and leaving us both frozen in her wake. We stare at each other, the other bartender and I. Those wide blue eyes are on me again, and I read understanding.
“You!” Bane’s hand cups my chin, forcing me to look at him. He’s inches away from my face and I see the same angry sparks still in his chocolaty eyes from last night.
“You’re a pain in my ass, Red, and next time I just might not be in the rescuing mood. Get your ass in line! I don’t care if you are really just that stupid or if you have a death wish. Either way, I can’t help you if you’re going to cause trouble everywhere you go.”
I really don’t need or want the lecture. A mixture of rage and helplessness pricks the corners of my eyes with tears and my mouth flies opens to retort, to tell him to shove it, to tell him none of this is helping me, that if he really wanted to help, he’d get me the fuck out of here. That he’s just as much of a jackass as anybody else in this dump.
But I rethink it.
Bane still hasn’t touched me or hurt me. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe he’s just repulsed by me, maybe he’s disinterested, or maybe he really was telling the truth about his feelings for human trafficking. Who knows. It doesn’t really matter.
What really matters is that if he hadn’t happened to be right here just now with his A-game, angry face and adrenaline…yikes. A shudder passes through my body as I realize what Smokey would have done to me. In public. Humiliation blooms in my cheeks.
Despite my unsteadiness and threatening tears, I force myself to meet Bane’s eyes. In them I read resentment and annoyance but also something human, something like a flicker of pity. I don’t like the way I see myself reflected there: a pathetic and inconvenient liability. It’s hard to know that I register so low in another person’s reckoning, somewhere between cockroaches and diarrhea. But hey, Bane’s disgusted ownership is better than Coco’s sadistic bullying or Jack and Smokey’s total dehumanizing subjugation.
I’ll take it.
Because right now I am so shaken and hurt and tired and hungry, I’ll take any scrap of humanity that comes my way. I tell myself it’s not that I’m accepting this place, these circumstances. I’m not agreeing to him owning me, it’s just that I need to do the right thing as far as I see it. I raise my trembling fingers to wrap around his under my chin. His skin is rough and warm and there’s a small shock of static electricity.
“Thank you,” I hear myself whisper. “For stopping him.”
Though I am able to keep my face still and my breathing steady, I can’t control the floodgates as hot, shamed tears spill quietly down my cheeks.
Bane blinks at me, taken aback. Curiosity and wariness flash in his eyes.
“Don’t mention it,” he whispers. “Just another day in the life of a fucking hero.”
He releases my chin with a rough push and turns to go.
“Wait,” I say, surprising myself.
His back stiffens and he whips his head over his shoulder to give me an impatient eyebrow raise.
I bend as much as I can with my chains, find a clean lowball, and scoop in some ice. Reaching behind me, I trail my fingers over bottle tops until I find the one I want and splash a generous portion over the rocks. I slide it over the bar towards Bane.
He looks at the Macallan 30, puzzled, then back up at me. His eyes narrow suspiciously, but he takes a step closer to the bar again and closes a rugged masculine hand around the glass. Raising it under his nose, he gives it a tentative sniff. His eyes never leave mine.